Thousands Of Rendell-Administration Documents Made Public

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HARRISBURG (CBS) – Thousands of documents, photographs and videos amassed during Ed Rendell’s eight years as governor are now ready to be viewed by the public at the state archives in Harrisburg.

Mary Soderberg, head of Governor Rendell’s transition team, says it is unusual to have so much material available so quickly, “It’s really how rapidly we’ve gone through them. I mean, Governor Rendell was adamant early on. He said, ‘you know, I want to have them available to anybody who wants to take a look at them.’ So, we’ve been working with the Bureau of Archives.”

Soderberg and other members of former Governor Rendell’s transition team have spent the last few months poring over 300 boxes of correspondence, speeches, videos of public events and other materials, getting them ready to be viewed by the public, and quickly. Why?

“He believes that there’s information in these files that is still very pertinent: transportation funding, education funding – these issues have not gone away.”

It’s up to each governor to decide how much of his records to release and when. For example, the records of former governors Ridge and Schweiker are sealed for another ten years and twelve years, respectively, and a third of the late Robert Casey’s are sealed until 2015.

Less than 2% of Rendell’s are sealed. There are some limitations on the use of personal information that may be inadvertently contained in the records. For a detailed listing of the Rendell records that are available, you can view the archives here.